


On Schedule

by softintelligence



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24828718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softintelligence/pseuds/softintelligence
Summary: In Los Angeles, Aracely Flores is trying to expand her family's food truck business, and she keeps hearing about Jade Nguyen, chef-owner of Perfect Finish, another food truck that is taking social media by storm. Is Jade Nguyen worth all the hype around her, or is she just one of those rich elites with nothing better to do?
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Comments: 11
Kudos: 18
Collections: Eat Drink and Make Merry 2020





	On Schedule

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Edonohana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/gifts).



> Best read with the creator's skin on. If you have creator's style turned off, please click "Show Creator's Style" in the right-hand corner of the work.

Aracely Flores had spent the last month hyping up her family’s new food truck, Hot Tongue, and its appearance at Abbot Kinney’s First Friday, the monthly food truck event in Venice. Now that the day was here, parked right in front of the ice cream shop, down the block from Hot Tongue, was some last minute replacement truck with a horde of people jam-packed in front of it like sardines in a tin. Aracely had heard of it, briefly—something about bougie sandwiches—but she hadn’t paid much attention to it, instead focusing her efforts on making sure people were going to line up in front of their food truck on their debut night.

Well. They were lining up in front of it, but not _for_ it. 

Aracely turned to her dad, who was fussing over every single knob, switch, and door in the truck, and her nineteen year old brother, Dante, who was playing one of those infuriating games where you tapped the screen over and over. “That truck is stealing all our customers!" 

“Cálmate, mija,” her dad said, with absolutely no concern whatsoever for their livelihood, “we still have the construction sites.”

“Does that mean I can go home?” Dante said, without even looking up. 

“Dad, construction doesn’t last forever—you know what, never mind. And no, you can’t go home.” Aracely sighed. “I’m gonna go check out the new truck.” 

Rather than braving the sidewalk, Aracely walked against traffic to get to the corner of the block. Even with the breeze from the ocean, just a mile away, it was still a Los Angeles summer: a little toasty, even in the early evening.

The truck wasn’t adorned with any vinyl stickers or graphics. Instead, it was a matte white, with the words, “Perfect Finish” across the truck in a sans-serif font. It didn’t look at all like it belonged with the other flashy and gregariously decorated trucks.

Aracely wanted to get a better look at the menu, but with the crowd in front of the truck and the line for the ice cream shop filling the sidewalk, she gave up. It couldn’t be that good. 

After she opened up the line for Hot Tongue, she tried to ignore the line for Perfect Finish, but it seemed that Hot Tongue’s line was actually an endless stream of people waiting to get something from Perfect Finish. Aracely worried they weren’t going to break even that night.

During a lull, Aracely leaned out the order window and cupped her mouth with one hand. 

“Hey! You, back there! Yeah, you.”

“Uh, I’m waiting for another truck,” the man said, refusing to make eye contact. He had a particular look about him: dressed simple and drab enough in a t-shirt and jeans, but Aracely knew that the shirt alone probably cost $300. And here she was accounting for every single transaction in the truck, day after day, to make sure nothing was missing. 

“I know,” she said, and didn’t add, ‘asshole.’ “But what are they selling over there?”

He didn’t even turn to look at her. “It’s new.” 

The Lord did like to test her. “What are they selling?” 

“Some kind of bun me,” the guy said. “I saw it on Instagram. It looks like a rectangle.” He paused, then said, “It’s twenty dollars. You get a drink too.” 

_Twenty dollars?!_ Aracely would have spat out her drink if she had been drinking something. For a bánh mì! Aracely could respect the owner’s cojones. 

She leaned back to talk to her dad. “Can you believe this, Dad? It’s twenty dollars!” 

Her dad shook his head. “I told you, mija, we should just stick with the construction sites instead of these fancy gringos. They want overpriced—"

“We’re not talking about that right now,” Aracely said. A customer came up to the order window and she smiled. “What can I get you?”

The evening peak showed up, and Aracely didn’t have time to think about Perfect Finish anymore. All the marketing she’d done over the last few weeks had been worth it: people were unfussy about their orders, didn’t linger over the menu too much, and best of all, kept her family busy on the hot plate and at the register. Dante complained and whined and groaned at the beginning, but eventually he went quiet, falling into the rhythm of assembling burritos and tacos alongside their dad. When he started to slow down, Aracely swapped with him to give him a break. Just at the right time, too, because the line for Hot Tongue suddenly surged in volume.

At the end of the night, as Aracely decided they were going to close up, an Asian woman with long hair tied up in a ponytail rushed up to the truck. She wore a black chef’s coat with golden trim and black pants and looked like she belonged in a fine dining restaurant, not in front of a food truck. But she also had bags under her eyes and some of her make-up was patchy in some places. 

All their customers had seemed put-together and rich, attractive in that athleisure “Los Angeles” way, but this woman had a look familiar to Aracely: that stressed, working-too-hard look. Aracely couldn’t help but think that she was very cute.

“Hi,” the woman said, a little out of breath. “Um, are you still open?”

Aracely looked at her dad and Dante. Dante shrugged. 

“What do you want, sweetie?”

The woman blushed. Maybe Aracely shouldn’t have called her sweetie. “Can I have two lengua burritos with everything, please?”

“Sure,” Aracely said, inputting the order into the tablet. “Give us a few minutes, okay? That’ll be twenty dollars for both. You can tap to pay.” 

“Thanks so much,” the woman said, smiling wide. She paid. “Wait, hold on. I’ll be right back.” Without waiting for Aracely to respond, she dashed off toward the ice cream shop. 

Aracely didn’t think anything of it.

Apropos of nothing, her dad said, “She’s very pretty.” 

Aracely slapped her own forehead. “You can’t just say stuff like that, Dad.” 

“What are you going to do then,” Dante said, wrapping the first burrito deftly, “get married to the food truck?” 

“I’m not doing this to find a d—” 

The woman returned carrying a cardboard cup holder with three cups of bubble tea, each with its own straw. The cups were filled with what looked like a pale pink milk tea and opaque, white boba at the bottom. “I brought this for you guys,” she said. “Sorry I couldn’t bring anything else—I don’t have anything else left from the food truck. These are the leftovers from people who didn’t want their drinks.” 

Oh. Another food truck owner. 

The woman pushed the bubble teas through the ordering window. 

“Thanks,” Aracely said. Because their usual truck focused on rotating construction locations where they were the only food truck, they usually didn’t get to sample other people’s food. “What is it?”

“Rose milk tea and boba,” the woman said. “I hope you like it.”

“Your burritos, miss,” Aracely’s dad said. He held out a small plastic bag. 

“Thank you _so_ much.” The woman took the bag, immediately removed a burrito from it, unwrapped it, and then, to Aracely’s complete surprise, took a huge chomp out of the burrito like a group of hungry children being released into an all-you-can-eat candy buffet.

The woman started speaking—with her mouth full!—and saying something that Aracely guessed was, “This is so good!” Aracely thanked her experience with her brothers for helping her develop this skill. 

Both her dad and Dante were laughing.

The woman wasn’t even done with her first bite when she took _another_ huge bite from her burrito. Aracely watched in sick fascination, half-horrified and half-impressed, that such a small person had the ability to absolutely destroy the gigantic burrito in her hands. 

But it was nice, too—they spent so long in the food truck that the smells didn’t really faze them, and most of the construction workers were regulars anyway, so while they loved their orders, they didn’t express the same unadulterated joy and pleasure in their food as the woman in front of her was expressing.

“Hey, sis,” Dante said, “try this.” He held out one of the bubble teas to her; both he and her dad were already drinking from theirs. 

“The tea’s going to make you stay up, dad,” Aracely said and took a sip.

The scent of rose flooded her nose. It was lovely and light, without an overwhelming pungency that she sometimes felt when her father brought roses home on mother’s day. While she usually felt that milk tea was watery, this milk tea coated her tongue and was simultaneously creamy and ultra smooth, with a strong but not overwhelming tea flavor that seemed to enhance the sweetness from the milk. The boba was perfectly chewy, not too sweet, with an almost grassy, vanilla-like flavor. 

“Um, wow,” Aracely said. “This is really good. You made this?”

The woman was almost to the last quarter of her burrito. “Yeah,” she said. “Do you like it?” 

“Which truck are you from? And what’s your name?”

“My name’s Jade. My truck’s in front of the ice cream shop—Perfect Finish.”

Aracely tried not to let her eyes pop out of her head. “I saw a lot of people lining up for your truck.” 

“Yeah,” Jade said. “It’s my first day running a truck. I underestimated how many people were going to line up and sold out of everything pretty early.”

Aracely couldn’t stop herself from blurting out the first thing on her mind. “It’s your _first day_?! You got into First Friday? And you sold out?" 

Jade crumpled up the wrapper for her first burrito and tossed it into the bin. “My brother posted about it on his Facebook, and people started showing up.” 

She hadn’t even planned to advertise it?! 

Aracely felt her head throb. This woman had sold out on her first day of operating, ever! “How did you even get a slot here if you’ve never operated?”

With a completely straight, serious face, Jade said, “My brother knows one of the organizers.” 

Aracely had worked her ass off to get a spot in the rotation and to prove that their food was good and special and interesting enough and this woman in front of her had a brother who knew one of the organizers! She could barely contain the rage in her voice when she said, “Who was supposed to be in that spot before?” 

Jade’s mouth was set in a thin line. “I didn’t take anyone’s spot, if that’s what you’re implying. They had a last minute withdrawal, and they offered me the spot a few days ago. And I paid the other food truck the money they would have made if they’d been able to come.”

Oh, so she was rich, too. Aracely was not even trying to be nice when she said, “A little charity doesn’t suddenly make you a good person.” 

Jade shrugged. “I’m using my resources,” she said. “Is that wrong?” 

Aracely wanted to shout at her—that it wasn’t fair to everyone else, not to anyone else who knew that First Friday was their shot at getting their brand out there, and if she had that much money in the first place maybe she should actually give it out more often, and not only when she needed to assuage her guilt.

But her dad cleared his throat. “Thank you, miss,” he said. “We’re glad you enjoyed the burrito.” 

A smile spread over Jade’s face. “Thank you so much for making it for me. The meat is so tender and aromatic, and the rice has a great texture. It feels really good in the mouth. I'm looking forward to eating the other one.” 

Her dad beamed at both Dante and Aracely.

Aracely rolled her eyes. “Thanks for the drink,” she said. “Actually, we’re about to close up.” 

Jade’s face was inscrutable. Aracely couldn’t tell if she was angry, annoyed, or just didn’t give a fuck. “You’re always welcome by the truck. I’ll save some food for you and whoever else you want to bring.” 

“Sure, thanks,” Aracely said. Jade nodded, once, and then walked down the street. Aracely didn’t think she’d be taking Jade up on her offer.

Dante punched her arm. “Dude, you blew it!" 

Aracely snorted. “I could never get along with someone like that.”

Her dad grunted. Aracely couldn’t help but feel irritated. What the hell was _he_ frustrated about? She’d been the one who had set this whole thing up; she’d signed her name on the loan to the truck and on the truck commissary agreement; she was the one who had looked through the catalogs to find the best equipment for them; she’d done everything for this goddamn truck for their family, and they wanted her to feel sympathetic to someone who been given all the things she had worked hard for! 

Aracely grumbled. Most importantly, Jade’s food probably wasn’t even that good.

~*~

All things considered, Aracely still had a good feeling about their new truck. The initial tweets and reviews had been extremely positive, with only one person complaining about how expensive the avocado addition was, and Aracely chalked that up to tourism. If she could keep generating hype around it, get enough people to gram the fuck out of the tacos and burritos and the truck, then maybe they could supplement the construction site routes. Maybe they could even hire some extra people so her dad didn’t have to break his back every weekday.

She managed to get permission to park the truck on Sawtelle Boulevard, across the street from the Japanese supermarket. Her dad didn’t seem that enthused about going west again and had opted not to go, but Dante and her other brother, Mateo, were bouncing off the walls of the food truck. 

“Let’s get boba,” Mateo said, as Aracely began the long trip to the west side. 

Aracely shook her head. “There’s too much sugar.”

“Remember that boba we got?” Dante asked. “From the Asian chick?”

Oh, Aracely remembered. For the last week she’d had dreams about it and had craved boba like she never had before. “No idea what you’re talking about,” she said. 

“What boba?” Mateo asked. 

Dante started blabbering on about the rich hot Asian chick with the nice hair who had given them this sick as fuck rose boba but Aracely had SNUBBED her and that was why she was going to be ALONE for the rest of her life with NO ONE to love her— 

“Shut up!” Aracely yelled. 

“Sis!” Mateo said. “Marry her and take her money!”

“If you say anymore, I’m never letting _either_ of you help out again.”

They went silent. 

It was early evening. Traffic coming from the east side had been surprisingly light, so they still had a couple of hours before they needed to prepare for opening. The air was just the right amount of chilly, and the sun was just starting to set: the sky had its pink and lavender cast, giving everything a glow. The sidewalks were busy with people milling about, talking to each other, holding boba and shaved ice and milk ice cream with honeycomb on top. 

“Let’s get some of these noodles,” Aracely said, pointing to the next block over to a shop that had a crowd of people in front of it. “They sell a type of ramen called tsukemen. You have these cold ramen noodles that you dip into the broth and then—” But Dante and Mateo were holding their phones out, taking videos and selfies, probably for their Vines or TikToks or whatever they were doing these days.

She pulled out her wallet and took out a few twenty dollar bills, which she stuffed into Dante’s free hand. “For dinner. And be back by eight thirty so we can start heating everything up.” 

“Thanks, sis!"

Aracely signed her name onto the clipboard, which already had half a column’s worth of names on it. They were mostly for parties of three or more; she hoped that it would make it easier for her to get a spot soon. 

She checked out the art gallery across the street. The current exhibition featured a single artist who created dioramas with little painted figurines, some human, some animal, and all the elements carefully placed within the chaotic scenes. She wanted to touch them, but they were encased by glass and hung up on the walls. Most of them already had tiny red stickers next to them to indicate they were sold. Not that Aracely would have been able to afford them, anyway—one of the boxes was $650! 

She stopped by the market next door. It was full of clothes and an assortment of other trinkets: candles, notebooks, and enamel pins. The jackets and jeans were nice on her hands, but when she flipped the price tag on a pair of jeans, she immediately put them back.

Aracely wandered back across the street to the restaurant; she was right on time: her name was next. 

The waitstaff attending to the list emerged from inside and picked up the clipboard. They squinted at her name. “Celia?”

“Here,” Aracely said.

“Outside okay?” 

“Yes, outside’s fine.” 

The waitstaff seated her near the entrance at a table meant for two and handed her a menu, but Aracely declined it. “I know what I want,” she said. “A char siu tsukemen with extra egg, please.”

Aracely looked at her phone while she waited. There were already people tweeting about the truck being there. She could see them, too. The seat she was at had a clear view of the truck, and people were in front of it with their phones. Dante and Mateo had already gone—somewhere, she didn’t know. Probably to get boba. 

Her mind drifted to the rose milk tea again. Sure, there were a good number of boba places here, but she doubted they’d be as good as what Jade had given her.

Aracely took out her phone and swiped into her web browser.

🔍 perfect finish food truck

_The New York Times_ review of the food truck was the first result. 

**Restaurant review**   
**Perfect Finish: An Unfulfilled Promise**   
By Jameson Peterson

> Once again, I’m in the City of Angels to chase the dream of good food, this time because some readers tipped me off to a “limited,” new food truck, Perfect Finish, headed by chef-owner Ngoc Bich “Jade” Nguyen. Despite Nguyen being completely unknown, pictures of her sharp—literally—take on bánh mì are littering my Twitter feed and my mentions on a near non-stop basis as.
> 
> For those who don’t know, the bánh mì is a result of the French Indochina that combines the genius of French baking with the scrappiness of the Vietnamese people. Who else would combine what is simply boiled meat paste and some cold cuts of pig ear and gelatin with a crunchy, but delicate baguette? There is nothing more sublime than the imperfect arrangement of pickled daikon and carrots, cucumbers, and cilantro. 
> 
> Then you have Jade Nguyen’s bánh mì: straight-sided like a rectangle with no stray pickled daikon or carrot poking out from underneath its eerily square bread, no extra spread of pate peeking out from one side of the bread, no cilantro snaking out to find new soil. The bánh mì looks like the result of a scientist asking someone living in a cave who had no knowledge of what a sandwich looked like to render one in 3D using only a vague description of “layers of colored stuff.” There are layers and colors in Nguyen’s bánh mì, that’s for sure, but it lacks heart and soul, especially for the steep asking price of $20. Nguyen needs to look back into her roots to remember what Vietnamese food should really look and taste like.

Even though Aracely didn’t think very highly of Jade and her connections, she still felt her face heat up. This writer—she glanced at the profile image—this writer was white. And here he was, talking about some authentic food shit. Okay, she wouldn't personally pay twenty dollars for a bánh mì. But she wasn't going to stop someone from charging twenty dollars. Aracely would charge fifty dollars for a burrito if she could. This asshole probably thought that bánh mì had to be cheap, that it couldn't be fancy or hold a candle to coq au vin.

“Tsukemen’s here, excuse me.” 

Aracely lifted her arms to make room for the two bowls, one much smaller than the other. The bowl on the left had yellow noodles, a fan of char siu laid across the top, a soft-boiled egg nesting beside them, and two pieces of nori sticking out from the side. The small one on the right had a dark broth in it that smelled strongly of braised pork. 

“Do you know how to eat this?”

“Yes, thanks so much,” Aracely said, pocketing her phone. Her mouth watered. 

Aracely picked up the noodles from the left  
bowl and dipped them into the right bowl. The broth coated the noodles like a thick sauce, and when she ate them, there was an explosion of umami, salt, and roasted pork flavor. Once she started, she couldn’t stop eating, but she tried to take her time to savor the taste of the broth and even the chewy noodles. Most of the construction sites were on the east side of Los Angeles, and she mostly ate from the truck itself anyway, so it was rare that she was able to eat in this area.

Aracely expected that dipping the fatty char siu in the broth would simply taste like pork, but together, the tender pork fat dipped in the essence of pork and fish stock somehow made both components taste even more intense and savory and filling.

Before she knew it, she finished her noodles, char siu, and egg. Aracely frowned down at her bowl. Gone too soon. 

She tipped, paid, and walked back to the other block with the food truck. She didn’t see her brothers around, but there was still time for them to show up. Just in case, she sent them a quick text.

  
Aracely  
Are you done eating yet  
  
Dante  
We’re getting cream puffs you want one  
  
Aracely  
What flavors  
  
Dante  
Chocolate vanilla matcha  
  
Aracely  
Matcha  
  


Aracely turned her head to the Japanese market across the street where the cream puff place was. The doors were made of glass, so she could see her brothers taking even more videos while they were waiting in line. Jesus.

Her brothers jaywalked across the street with two bright yellow boxes of cream puffs in their hands. 

“And where are we going to store that?” Aracely asked as she took the power generator out of the back of the truck. 

“Just put it in the lowboy,” Mateo said. “We gotta bring some home for my friends!"

“We’re working, not on a field trip.” Honestly, she could not go anywhere with these two without it becoming a ‘thing.’

Dante hooked the power generator into the truck. “Don’t be so dramatic, sis! Dad’s gonna love a chocolate cream puff.”

“You’re going to give him diabetes.” Aracely lifted the side panel on the food truck to reveal the ordering and pick-up windows. 

From inside the food truck, Mateo shouted, “All right, gentlepeople, we are open for business!”

Aracely smiled.

~*~

Hot Tongue’s next event was a wine festival at Union Station. One of the organizers had actually reached out to her; they’d tried one of the burritos and apparently thought that it would go great with some wine. Who drank wine with tacos? But Aracely didn’t question it. New business was always welcome, and Union Station was much closer to the commissary compared to Venice. The drive home would be short.

Aracely pulled the truck up behind the other three food trucks that were already by the train station. She knew there would be five, but she hadn’t checked the website to see who the other one would be. 

She wished she had, because a few minutes later, Perfect Finish rolled up behind her truck.

“Hell yeah!” Dante whooped from the back of the truck. “I’m getting a boba _and_ that bomb A-F bánh mì! This is definitely going on TikTok!” 

After the bad review in the _New York Times_ , she’d wondered how Jade was doing. She’d seen the photos of the rectangle bánh mì all over social media, but they all looked like they had gone through some sort of image processor. A 3D render, like the article had said. But the photos were everywhere. Jade was probably doing fine. 

Aracely was about to tell him to wait, but Dante hopped out of the back of the truck. At least he was taking the power generator out with him. 

Aracely stepped down from the back of the truck and saw Jade. Unlike the last time Aracely had seen her, not a hair was out of place on her head. Begrudgingly, Aracely had to admit that Jade looked good in her chef’s coat, even if it made Aracely feel like Jade was trying to make herself look “special” or “different” from “regular” food trucks. 

Jade popped up the side panel, but instead of the usual two windows, there was an LCD screen:

ONE ORDER PER PERSON.  
PRESS A BUTTON BELOW.

Below, there were two buttons and a spot to insert a card or tap a phone for payment, and what looked like a slot that looked like it would print out receipts. 

“Yo!!" Dante said. 

Jade turned, squinting, and then her eyes widened and the corners of her lips flipped up into a smile. “Oh, hey,” she said. “I recognize you, but I didn’t get your name last time.”

Dante puffed his chest up and threw his shoulders back. “Dante,” he said, holding out his hand. “And you’re Jade.”

Jade shook his hand. “Hi there, Dante. Good to see you again.” She turned and caught Aracely’s eyes. “Hey, Aracely. You guys want some bánh mì?” 

Aracely didn’t say anything, but Dante pumped his fist in the air. “I was born ready.” 

“It’s the ordering menu,” Jade said, gesturing to the screen and buttons. 

Aracely inched closer. The first button had icons of a bánh mì and a boba drink; the second button had the word ‘cancel’ on it. 

“You want drinks?” Jade asked, and when Dante said, 'yeah!', she pressed the first button.

TAP OR INSERT TO PAY.

Jade took out her phone and tapped it against the payment square.

PAYMENT ACCEPTED.  
ORDER #1.  
EAT YOUR RECEIPT.

“Eat the receipt?” Aracely said out loud.

The rectangular slot printed out a small, white receipt with green text on it. 

“Here, take it,” Jade said. “Try it. It’s soybean paper with some pandan-flavored ink.” 

Dante ripped the receipt off. Aracely peeked over his shoulder. 

The receipt said:

ORDER #1  
  
  
bánh mì & rose milk tea.  
  
  
  
Nói dễ, làm khó.

“What’s this at the bottom?” Aracely asked.

Jade glanced over. “It means, ‘easier said than done.’ They all get different little Vietnamese proverbs.” She walked to the back of the truck. “I’ll be right back with the bánh mì!" 

“This is sick,” Dante said. “Can we get something like this?” 

Aracely looked at the panel. She thought back to the catalogs of food truck equipment. “This looks custom-made,” she said. “Like it’s installed into the food truck itself.” 

“Uh, excuse me, are you in line? Is it open? Can we order, please?” 

Aracely stiffened and turned. A crowd was gathering behind them. People were posing in front of the truck from afar and checking their phones, tapping away at the screens. Others were staring at them with concerned looks and whispering to each other. 

Just as Aracely looked back at the LCD panel, Jade’s voice came through a hidden speaker. “Order #1, please pick-up.”

ORDER #1 READY.

A much smaller metal panel slid up on the other side of the panel and revealed a small window, with two boxes and two boba drinks in front. 

Dante grinned and swiped the food. “Thanks, Jade,” he said into the window. “We’re gonna pay you back! I’ll save some burritos for you, yeah?”

“Fair trade,” Jade said, laughing. “See you at the end.”

ONE ORDER PER PERSON.  
PRESS A BUTTON BELOW.

The people behind Aracely were starting to grumble. “Let’s go, Dante. Back to our truck. We need to get ready, too.”

The moment they stepped away from the front of the truck, the crowd swarmed to the front of the truck and started pressing buttons. Aracely hoped that they didn’t abuse the button system, but . . . 

“This receipt tastes dope,” Dante said.

“You ate it?!" Aracely had wanted to try it. “Okay, let’s eat the bánh mì. And give me that boba.”

“Thought you didn’t remember it?”

Aracely flushed. “Shut up.” She snatched one of the boba teas and boxes and out of Dante’s hands. 

In person, the bánh mì looked somehow even more unreal. It really did look like it was rendered and printed as a perfect rectangle, or that it had been sliced off an even bigger rectangle with some kind of rectangular cutter. When she lifted the top of the bread, it looked like the slices of meat were not just separated slices, but somehow they had all been glued together somehow. The layer of cilantro looked like it had been pressed and fused together, like dried flowers, but she could still see the individual leaves and stems that made them up. The layers of daikon and carrot—Aracely didn’t know how Jade had done it, maybe Jade had found exceptionally large daikon and carrots, but both layers were uniformly thin and rectangular, the same size as the meat and bread! Even the pate and mayo were spread over every crumb of the two bread slices!

Dante was already biting into his. The crunch of the bread was like a sound effect from a movie, not like actual bread.

“Sis!" Dante said, bread crumbs flying out of his mouth. “This is what rich tastes like!" 

It did look fancy. It also looked like a hell of lot of work. And Aracely hadn’t seen anyone else with Jade. Had she done all this by herself? No, that couldn’t be it . . . 

Aracely lifted the bánh mì into her hands. “Oh, shit,” she said, when the layers unaligned themselves. She tried to rearrange it, but somehow she just made it worse. 

She took a bite.

She’d never eaten what most considered ‘gourmet’ food before; none of that modernist shit with the two tiny pieces of chicken that had been aged for twenty years with little dabs of sauce, also aged for twenty years, on the side. First, it was expensive, and second, it seemed pretentious.

But this bánh mì had to be it. The crust had a satisfying crunch, but the crumb of it was moist and tender. With bánh mì, sometimes she felt that she would grab some types of meats but not others, or not enough of the pickled stuff, but every bite of this sandwich had the perfect amount of each ingredient. And despite its healthy size, Aracely craved more of it when she took the last bite. 

Jade’s food was on a completely different level than Aracely’s. And that writer from the _New York Times_ had said it lacked ‘heart and soul’?! 

Aracely wanted to talk to Jade right then. She had to learn more about the bánh mì: how it was made, why Jade was making it like this, and how was she turning a profit? Maybe she didn’t care about making money? That would make the most sense if she was putting all this work into it. 

“Sis, we got a line!” Dante had already finished his bánh mì _and_ his drink. 

Aracely threw her own drink into one of the fridges. She’d drink it later. No time now. 

The lines for all the food trucks were long, but none more than Jade’s. Aracely didn’t blame them. She wanted to line up for the sandwich too. 

Halfway through the night, the line at Jade’s food truck vanished. The crowd redistributed themselves across the other four food trucks, including Hot Tongue. She and Dante could barely keep up; she’d had to stop taking orders to hop on the hot plate to heat up some of the meat and assemble some of the tacos. 

Aracely regretted not bringing her dad, or at least Mateo, but she hadn’t thought the lines would balloon like this. Five food trucks could handle this crowd, but not four! 

Someone knocked on the back door of the truck. 

Who the hell was knocking right now? Hopefully not some irate Karen who had ignored the ‘very, VERY spicy’ warning on the hot sauce bottle. 

“Sorry, just a couple more minutes,” Aracely told the person waiting by the ordering window. They narrowed their eyes, their mouth twisted into a crooked line, but Aracely ignored it and opened the back door.

It was Jade.

“Do you need help?” Jade asked.

Aracely stared at her. 

“I looked at your menu,” Jade said. “If you show me where everything is, I can help.” 

Aracely glanced over her own shoulder. There was no way they were going to get all the orders ready, and if someone else could help . . . 

“Okay,” Aracely said, not even really believing the word coming out of her mouth. “Dante, can you show Jade where everything is?” 

Dante threw them a thumbs-up. “You got it.”

Aracely expected it to go poorly, maybe even worse than if Jade wasn’t there. But after Dante showed Jade where everything was, Jade said, “Okay. I can help.” 

Jade helped. There was a minimum time to prepare an order, of course; meat needed time to heat up, and there was a limit to how fast you could throw ingredients together, but Jade was efficient. She watched Dante prepare something once and then she replicated it, over and over again. She had no problems doing two or three things at once: calling out orders that were ready, making sure that the meat was not burnt, heating tortillas, assembling several tacos, and ensuring that even Dante had enough room to keep to his own tasks. And through the evening, Aracely never heard Jade once ask Dante to remind her where something was. 

Ten o’clock rolled around and the queue was empty. Aracely’s feet ached. Her throat itched. Judging by the slightly glazed look in Dante’s eyes, Aracely could tell he was feeling the same. 

“Dude,” Dante said, shaking his head like a wet dog trying to shake the water off. “Wow. Damn. Jade, you’re a boss!”

Jade laughed. Not one hair on her head was out of place. Her skin seemed perfectly clear and dewy. “Thanks,” she said. “And thanks for letting me help out on your truck.” 

“You’re thanking _us_?!” Aracely asked.

Jade’s cheeks went pink. “Well, it’s your space, and I’m just a stranger. But thank you for letting me in. I really enjoyed working with you.” 

Aracely shook her head. “You saved our asses, and you’re out here thanking us. You’re crazy.”

“Yeah, did you close up early?” Dante asked. He handed her a bag with some burritos in it. 

Jade’s face went even redder. “I ran out of food to serve.” She rubbed her eyes with one hand. “I fell asleep at the commissary last night and didn’t get to make enough baguettes. Thanks, Dante.”

This woman was making her own goddamn baguettes the night before an event? Was she even human? And she’d fallen asleep there.

Dante began gushing about the food. “The bánh mì was fucking bomb! And your food truck is dope too! You gotta come make ’em for my birthday party.” 

“Can you not, right now? We have to clean up.” Aracely started putting lids back on all the containers and wiping the counters down. “Sorry about my brother, Jade. Thanks for helping us out.” 

“No problem. If you ever need help, I’d be happy to. I only run the truck once or twice a month.” Jade also started cleaning up, but Dante took over from her by taking one of the rags out of her hands. “Sorry. Force of habit.” Jade reached into her chef’s coat and pulled out a business card and a pen. She scribbled something on the back and held the card out to Aracely. “This is my personal number on the back,” she said. Her voice just had the barest of a tremor, and her face was red. “If you want to talk about food. Call me. Or text me. Whatever.” 

Aracely’s world narrowed down to the card in Jade’s hand. Her jaw dropped. What was happening? Jade was giving her a card? With her personal number on it? Was she being asked out? Was Jade asking her out? No, that couldn’t be it, right? But she was blushing, and if all she wanted was to talk about food, why would she be so embarrassed?

“No pressure,” Jade added, looking away. She began to withdraw the card, but Dante snatched it from her hand.

“She’ll definitely give you a call,” Dante said. “Thanks, Jade! We gotta get back to headquarters. Can you think about doing bánh mì for my birthday party?” 

Jade laughed, her voice shaking a little. “I’ll think about it.” She opened the back of the food truck to hop out, but she looked back at Aracely and said, “Hope to see you soon,” before leaving.

Dante turned to Aracely and shook his head. “You have no game whatsoever.” 

Aracely closed her mouth. She looked at Dante. “What just happened?”

“Damn,” Dante said, as though he’d just heard the saddest news of his life. “You’re supposed to be the smart one.”

~*~

Dante didn’t let Aracely forget about Jade’s number, and even got their whole family in on it. Her mom asked her about ‘the nice person you met at work’; Mateo asked her if the family was rich yet; and her dad kept telling her to take a day off to go meet her. At the dinner table, Dante would loudly proclaim that it had been X days since Jade had given Aracely her number and she _still_ had not called Jade for a date. Then her mom would look at her with the most pitying look on her face. “Mija,” she said, “I don’t want you to grow old and lonely like me,” to which her father replied, “Y yo, que soy? El chopped liver?”

Of course her whole family were busybodies. What had she been expecting from them? For all she knew, they would start getting all the aunts and uncles involved and her phone would be blowing up with nosy text messages.

It wasn’t that she _didn’t_ want to talk to Jade. She didn’t know how to start the conversation. Maybe Jade hadn’t even really been asking her out on a date.

In the end, what pushed her wasn’t any of her family, but Instagram. Scrolling through her feed in bed on an off-day afternoon, she began seeing ads not for some hip fashion brands, but for dating services. After she witnessed three ads in a row featuring two women, she finally gave up and opened her text messages. Dante had started putting sticky notes all over her room with Jade’s phone number on them, so she only had to look over at the lamp on her bedside table to see Jade’s number. It took her five minutes to compose the perfect message.

  
Aracely  
Hey  
  


Aracely put her phone down on her chest. Now to wait. 

Wait.

She picked up her phone again. 

‘Hey’? She’d texted ‘hey’? How the hell was Jade supposed to know it was her? Shit! 

She was too slow to type out a new message.

Jade  
Hi is this Aracely?  
Sorry I’m doing voice to text do you want to come over?  


Jade’s next message was an address in Santa Monica. She tapped on the address to bring up Maps. Right now, with “less traffic than usual,” it was a thirty-minute drive.

More messages appeared from Jade.

Jade  
I’m cooking food  
It’s Vietnamese  
Promise it’s good  


The mention of food made Aracely’s heart skip a beat. Cooking? Of course she’d want to try more of Jade’s food. But . . . it was across the city. She’d have to take the 10 freeway. Did she really trust Maps’ estimate for how long it would take to get there? For all she knew, there would be an accident on the 10 as soon as she got on it, and it would take her an hour to get there. And the most important question of all—

Jade  
I have a parking spot  


Aracely jumped out of bed and vaulted toward the closet. She had to find something nice to wear, but what did she have? She had professional clothing for meeting with the bank, she had plain work clothes, but she didn’t have anything for dates.

She heard a knock on the shared wall between her room and Dante’s. “What are you doing?”

Aracely did _not_ have time for him. She didn’t have time to figure out what to wear, either. Traffic could start up at any time. She ended up settling on a green blouse and brown shorts, and even threw on a pair of small gold earrings. 

“Have fun on your date!” Dante yelled through the wall.

As Aracely passed her vanity, she caught a glance of herself in the mirror. Fuck. She needed to put make-up on. 

Aracely didn’t have very much make-up; like her clothes, she had enough for meeting with lenders and running the truck. Most customers didn’t even really look into the truck as they ordered; they were more concerned with making sure they ordered the right thing to care about what anyone inside was wearing. But now she was meeting someone for a personal reason.

She looked at the vanity. Okay, she could do this. In five minutes flat, she rubbed on some tinted moisturizer, brushed on blush and mascara, applied some lip gloss, and ran out the door; she wasn’t even sure if she’d done a good job or not, but it had to be better than nothing.

  
Aracely  
On my way!  
  
Jade  
See you soon heart eyes emoji text me when you get here  


‘Heart-eyes emoji’? Aracely blushed. Jade was probably still using voice-to-text.

Los Angeles blurred around her as she sped across the 10 freeway, the needle on the speedometer hovering above the speed limit. Her thoughts ran laps around her. What was she doing? Just running across the city in the middle of the day, to someone she barely knew, just because they promised food. She was heading out with her dad the next morning to visit the construction sites, since Dante had some summer courses he was taking at the local community college and Mateo had started his summer camp. What if she was too tired to work? 

She promised herself she’d only be there for a couple of hours.

As she went through an intersection, the houses suddenly turned from standard single-family homes into more . . . customized houses. Houses with balconies. Houses with nicely maintained lawns. And nice cars, a _Porsche_ parked right outside in a driveway. Maybe Jade had an apartment in one of these homes.

Jade’s place was nestled on the corner of a street, only a few blocks from the beach. The house itself was symmetrical, with two entrances and balconies, one of each on both sides. Aracely couldn’t tell if it was a single home or two apartments—either way, it looked expensive. Maybe Jade just had a room here? Aracely didn’t see any parking on the street, not because there wasn’t room on the curb, but it seemed like there was a sign every three feet that said, “NO PARKING ANY TIME.”

  
Aracely  
I’m here  
  
Jade  
Let me come out and show you the parking  


Jade emerged from one of the doors wearing a stainless white smock. She waved at Aracely and motioned for her to go around the corner and underneath the home’s overhang. It was a tight fit compared to the spacious parking spots in the suburbs of East Los Angeles. 

“Thanks for coming over,” Jade said, taking Aracely out into the front. “I really appreciate it! And you look great! Oh, take off your shoes, you can leave them here by the door . . .” 

Aracely was too shocked by the interior of Jade’s home to respond. It was an open loft with high ceilings and bright hardwood floors. Aracely could see a corner of the bed on the second level. 

More than half of the ground level was dedicated to large, industrial appliances. The part of the kitchen ceiling that had overhang from the loft level had a hanging pot rack screwed in it. There were _two_ stainless steel kitchen islands. There had to be—Aracely didn’t know how much money had to be in this place, but there had to be a couple of commas in the price tag. 

The only signs of a “regular” life were a tiny corner that had a white sectional with a large TV on the wall and the space next to it, which had three bookshelves filled with what looked like mostly cookbooks, including two sets of huge books (The Modernist something something). The middle bookshelf had a row without books; instead, a mounted cleaver and a ceramic pot with a handle had been placed on it. Jade didn’t even have a dining table. 

“Is that a combi oven?” Aracely asked. 

“Yes,” Jade said. “But please don’t tell anyone. I’ll let you use it, if you want.” Aracely didn’t even know what she would do with a combi oven. 

“You rent this?” Aracely asked. “Who rents out the other side?” 

“This side is mine, and my dad uses the other side when he visits,” Jade said. “No one’s renting.” She laughed a little. 

Aracely felt her hackles rise, but before she could respond, Jade said, “Come here,” and motioned for Aracely to come toward the kitchen island. “I made some spring rolls and peanut sauce already, but I need to use up all these other ingredients, so I was thinking of bánh xèo . . .”

On the kitchen island rested a beautiful white ceramic plate with three spring rolls. They had been meticulously wrapped, each one identical to the other. A small bowl sat next to the plate with a light peanut sauce. 

“Try one. I had some while I was waiting for you, so these are all yours.” 

When Aracely took a bite, she realized she didn’t even know what spring rolls tasted like. She was sure she’d had them, but this spring roll was something else entirely. The wrapper wasn’t tacky and the shrimp was juicy and tender, with a crispiness to the outside. There was a slight bitterness and crunchiness to the greens, but a sweet saltiness from the pickled daikon and carrots. Jade had also put something else in the spring roll—purple and green leaves folded lengthwise and tucked into one side that provided a delicate, earth-like flavor. 

“Um.”

Jade was laughing. “You didn’t even try it with the peanut sauce!” 

Aracely’s face was hot. How could it taste any better than this? She dipped the spring roll into the peanut sauce and took another bite.

Aracely didn’t know how peanut could taste more like itself, but this tasted more like peanut than Aracely had ever tasted. The sauce had been deeply roasted, and combined with the spring roll, made the roll sweeter and more strongly flavored. 

“This is really good,” Aracely said. 

“Thank you.” Jade looked extremely proud of herself. 

“Where did you learn to make this?” Aracely was eating her third one. 

“The base recipe I learned from my mom. My early attempts were actually really bad.”

Aracely couldn’t even imagine what Jade’s ‘bad’ tasted like. 

“So I was originally planning on having you help me prep,” Jade said. “But I ended up getting too excited when you said you were on your way, so I prepped all the ingredients for bánh xèo. Want to try making one?”

“I don’t even know what that is,” Aracely said, “but I’m down to learn something new.” Even though her heart was pounding in her chest. She knew she wasn’t as good a cook as Jade was.

Jade brought out an aluminum tray from the fridge with a myriad of small bowls on it, containing mung bean sprouts, some sliced pork, peeled shrimp, lettuce, sliced onions, sliced button mushrooms, and a pale yellow batter with green onions floating in it.

Jade turned the sumptuous red dials on the cooktop and placed a heavy-bottomed skillet on top. With a bit of a flourish, she splashed oil on the pan. “Okay, I’m going to let you take it over from here.”

“Wait, you’re not gonna show me how to make it?” Aracely panicked.

“No, of course not! I’m going to stand next to you and tell you how to make it. I have total faith in you.” Jade placed a reassuring hand on Aracely’s shoulder. “It’s going to be easy. Oh, but first, let me get you one of my spare aprons.” 

The apron Jade pulled out from beneath one of the counters had stains all over it, of different colors: green, purple, pink, even blue. “This is from when I was doing a lot of jam. Here, let me tie in the back for you . . .” 

Aracely blushed and stood still. “I can do it myself.” 

“You’re my guest,” Jade said. “Or, right now, I’m the teacher. Okay, I think the oil’s hot, so let’s throw in the onions first. Here’s a spatula.” 

Aracely was floundering in her mind, but she tried not to let it show as Jade told her what to do. Wait for the onions to soften, then throw in all the shrimp and pork . . . 

“Okay, here’s a third cup of batter, I’ll do this part,” Jade said. She poured the batter in from one side, and the pan sizzled and steamed. “Now rotate it to get it all over the pan—good job!”

It felt good to be praised, even for something so small.

“That’s why it’s called bánh xèo,” Jade said. “‘Xèo’ is the onomatopoeia for sizzle in Vietnamese.” 

“It looks like a crepe,” Aracely said. 

“Now sprinkle some mung bean sprouts on and cover it.” Jade turned one of the red dials to lower the heat. “Now, we wait two minutes.” 

“This doesn’t seem like very much food,” Aracely said. 

“Oh, there’s a lot more,” Jade said. “I have another two servings’ worth of ingredients, they’re all in trays in the fridge.” 

“That’s so many bowls! You could fit that all in your fridge!?” 

Jade laughed, a little sheepishly. “I have two fridges and freezers.”

“You—what?” Aracely looked back to where Jade had taken out the tray. There were four tall appliances, but Jade had assumed only one of them was a fridge. They were two freezers and fridges?! “Your electricity bill must be huge!” 

“Um, I’ve never thought about it,” Jade said. 

Aracely barely had time to process that comment; Jade turned up the heat on the stovetop and started giving Aracely directions again, this time to remove the lid and watch for the corners to crisp. It only took about thirty seconds, and then Jade said, “Now fold it in half.”

“Fold—fold it in half?” Aracely asked, staring at her. “You want me to fold this in half?!” 

Jade waved her hands like she had pom-poms in them. She was laughing at her. “You can do it, Aracely! Hurry, before it burns!” 

Aracely took the spatula and placed the spatula underneath one side. She tried to flip it over—

—and it flopped back down on itself.

“Oh no,” Jade said, “try again!” 

“No way!” But despite herself, this time she pushed with more force, and the bánh xèo folded into a perfect semi-circle.

“Now the fun part,” Jade said. She had a plate in her hand now. (Where did she keep these things? How did she get them so fast?) “Slide it onto this plate.”

No matter how hard Aracely shook the pan or nudged the crepe with the spatula, the bánh xèo remained steadfastly stuck to the pan. After thirty seconds of Aracely yelling, “Get out of there, you shit!”, Jade was wiping tears from her eyes from laughing. 

“Okay, I can take it over from here.”

“I’m going to make this work,” Aracely said. “Don’t worry.” This time, she shoved the bánh xèo off the plate.

It flew off the pan and into the plate—now unfolded, the pork and meat detaching from the crepe itself. Mung bean sprouts had jumped off board, onto the counter. 

“Oh no,” Aracely said, crestfallen. 

“You did a really good job for your first time. Don’t worry, I can make the rest.” 

Aracely wanted to stop. Instead, some mad part of her said, “I want to try it again.”

Growing up, Aracely hadn’t cooked for ‘fun.’ Food was good, but it was for sustenance. There was always an end result. Of course, it was fun in the familiarity of it, of being together with her family, but it wasn’t like this. This was cooking just to learn something for learning’s sake.

By the third bánh xèo, Aracely was proud of what she’d made: a crispy bánh xèo that looked soft on the inside with a healthy amount of fillings. She also wondered how Jade was going to wash the millions of little bowls she had taken out with all the ingredients in them.

“Let’s eat, and I’ll load up the dishwasher.” Jade went to the fridge a final time to take out a plate of leaves: Thai basil, Vietnamese coriander, lettuce leaves, and more mung bean sprouts and a small bowl of fish sauce with peppers in it. She motioned to bring the plate of bánh xèo over. “So what you do is take some of this bánh xèo and place it in the lettuce, like this, roll it, and dip it into the fish sauce. All hands, no utensils.”

It was like eating the spring rolls again, but this time with a fermented and spicy flavor from the fish sauce with chiles in it. The crepe provided more crispiness than the spring roll, and the turmeric lended a long flavor to the whole experience. 

“How do you make everything so good?” Aracely asked. 

“ _I_ didn’t make this,” Jade said. “ _You_ did.” 

Aracely blushed. “You know what I mean.”

“This one is also my mom’s recipe. I didn’t do anything to it. It’s very traditional. What you had earlier with the spring roll, the bánh mì, and the boba—that’s all the ‘weird’ stuff I experiment with. And there’s more, but it takes too long to make.” 

“You’re like a magician, whatever you do with the food. The food I’m making with the truck . . . that’s traditional.” 

Jade shook her head and looked right into Aracely’s eyes. “I love the food your truck makes. You can tell it’s really made with hard work, love, and care. There’s intention in it.”

The intensity behind Jade’s words made her feel deeply uncomfortable—embarrassed, even. “Thanks,” she said. “I do it because I have to, to help my family. It’s not fun, though.”

Jade reached over and squeezed one of Aracely’s hands. It was slightly sticky and greasy from the fish sauce and the food. “You’re too talented to say that.”

Aracely wanted to melt into the floor and disappear. There was too much attention on her. “That’s life,” she said, averting her eyes, but she squeezed Jade’s hand back. She felt light-headed. When was the last time she touched anyone like this? 

Jade said, “Look at me,” and Aracely turned her head. Jade had a serious expression on her face, and her hand still gripped Aracely’s. “We’re going to fix this.” 

“What? Me not having fun?” Aracely asked. She laughed, a little chuckle, not because it was funny, but because it sounded so ridiculous.

“Yes,” Jade said. “We’re going to _make_ it fun—together.”

~*~

After eating the bánh xèo and helping Jade clean up, Aracely went home that night. But she went back the next day, and the next day, and the day after that, and so on . . . 

Jade always had a new cooking project for them when Aracely came over. One night it would be making phở broth, the next night it would be reaping the rewards and eating several bowls of phở while watching trashy reality TV. 

Once, Jade started the process of making her ‘rectangle’ bánh mì. She’d used one of the mystery appliances in her home to ‘pull a vacuum’ on the dough to ‘autolyse the bread,’ and the night after that, Jade arranged a meat selection for a “make-it-yourself” sandwich bar. Aracely had asked where the rectangle meat was, but Jade had gone on and on, and once Jade mentioned ‘meat glue’ Aracely nope’d out of the conversation. 

“This bread seems like a lot of work,” Aracely said. And Jade had said she’d fallen asleep making them one time. “And what about the pickles and stuff?”

“Oh, that,” Jade said. “That takes a while too, and I’m still trying to figure out a way to make better sheets of pickles. Not all the bánh mì I make look perfectly rectangular.”

“I think they looked amazing,” Aracely said, “and tasted amazing, too.” 

Jade beamed at her.

When Aracely asked her what other ‘fancy’ food Jade could make, Jade had laughed. “Watch this,” she said, and took out a box of “ExtraMoist” yellow cake mix. Aracely thought Jade had lost her mind, and was about to tell her that if she was going to make cake out of a box, Aracely could do that blindfolded, but then Jade had prepared the cake mix and taken out some paper cups and a whipping siphon.

“What are you doing? What is that?” 

“I’m going to charge this with N2O,” Jade said. Aracely remembered chemistry, but barely, and when the whipping siphon hissed with gas, Aracely jumped. 

Jade depressed the lever of the whipping siphon and dispensed some of the cake mix into paper cups. “Now I’m going to microwave this.”

Aracely felt lost. “I know how to make a microwave cake.” 

“Trust me!” Jade said. “And, I already have some whipped cream.” She took another whipping siphon out of the fridge. 

Rising within the microwave, the small cylindrical cake that popped out of the cup looked perfectly fluffy and tall; usually, her microwave cakes came out a bit dense, but these . . . “What is this,” she said, “devil magic?”

Jade laughed again. With a dramatic wave of the arm, she squeezed out perfect dollops of whipped cream onto the small cakes.

The cakes were divine. 

Another night, they’d spent a whole night making and folding different kinds of potstickers—xiao long bao, gyoza, mandoo, momos—and cooking them in different ways—stir-fried, deep-fried, steamed, baked in the oven, boiled. Jade had shown Aracely how to do a series of different pleats and shapes. Aracely didn’t think hers looked bad until she saw Jade’s: each type of dumpling a clone in both size and shape. 

“I want to redo mine,” Aracely said.

It seemed like Jade was always laughing, but Aracely never felt like it was mean. It was more like Jade seemed to be having the most fun she’d ever had, like everything Aracely said was the funniest thing Jade had ever heard. “Yours are perfect,” Jade said. “And besides, you haven’t seen any of the aunties in the shops. Not only are theirs all like little clones of each other, but they’re also fast.” 

Aracely had gone home that night feeling as full as she’d ever been. 

They’d watched some food shows on Netflix, thigh-to-thigh on the couch. Aracely thought frequently about one episode they’d watched about the gay Asian chef in Los Angeles. 

That night, Jade said, “I’ve been there. We should go sometime! It’s not too expensive.” 

‘Not too expensive’? Aracely felt uneasy, but said nothing. 

“Do your parents know?” Jade asked. “That you’re gay?” 

“Yeah,” Aracely said. “They were like, oh but you dated boys in college! You’re just confused!” Jade laughed softly. “It took them a few years, but my dad’s a lot better. My mom is just . . . she tries. What about your parents?”

“Well. I guess my dad’s feeling is like, my brother’s straight, at least. But he’s okay with it. I think he’s given up at this point.”

“What about your mom?” 

Jade was quiet. Then she said, “She said she didn’t care, as long as I’m happy.” 

“And now?” 

“She passed away a few years ago.”

Aracely stared at Jade, and then she wrapped her arms around her. “I’m so sorry,” she said, muffled into Jade’s shoulder.

“It’s okay,” Jade said, returning her embrace. “I feel bad for my ba ngoai. She’s the only one left on my mom’s side.” Her voice trembled, just a bit. 

Aracely squeezed her harder. 

Jade also liked to go to the beach, especially after taking Aracely to an ice cream shop with a little kid for its logo.The shop they went to had a rotating stock of flavors like basil, summer corn, jasmine honey wine, and a coffee flavor made from some local roastery. 

Jade would drive her very nice, very expensive car (“This seems new,” Aracely said, and Jade mumbled something about her dad buying it used) to the beach and walk along the pedestrian path, beach houses to their left and the dark, open ocean on their right, both of them with a cone of ice cream in one hand. 

One night, Jade was complaining about the cold—again—and rubbing her free hand up and down the arm holding the ice cream cone. 

“Why do you get ice cream then?” Aracely asked.

“It makes me feel warmer on the outside.” Jade was the faster eater by far; she was already working on her waffle cone, whereas Aracely had only taken a few licks. 

Aracely laughed. “That makes no sense.”

“It does,” Jade said. “It definitely does. But you know what would make me feel warmer?” She swapped the cone into her other hand. “If we held hands.”

Aracely blushed. Her eyes darted around them.

She’d dated other people in college, of course, but they had all been men. Some of them had been nice enough, but Aracely had felt like she was just going through the motions of a relationship. When she’d heard some of her college roommates talking about their boyfriends, she never once empathized or felt the same way; she never felt excited because they wanted to hold hands or kiss and most times when her boyfriends _had_ asked, she’d been annoyed. Then she had dreams of other women. Her parents had been accepting, but then the guilt, and shame . . . 

“No one’s looking,” Jade said. She brushed the back of Aracely’s hand with hers. 

The blood was rushing through Aracely’s ears like eggs being beaten in a stand mixer. Part of her wanted to say no, she wasn’t going to hold her hand, she wasn’t ready yet. But then the other part of her was asking her what the hell she was so afraid of. 

“It’s okay,” Jade said. “We can just keep walking, too.”

“No!” Aracely stopped and grabbed Jade’s hand. Her face felt like it was burning off. “Let’s hold hands.”

Jade was laughing at her. “It’s okay, I don’t want you to feel pressured—” 

“It’s fine!” Aracely said. “It’s the twenty-first century, right? No big deal. I could even—I could even kiss you!”

Aracely leaned in and kissed her. 

Jade tasted like a blueberry muffin because of her ice cream, but it didn’t mix well with the vegan dark chocolate ice cream she’d picked. And they were both carrying ice cream cones, which Aracely could tell they were both trying not to drop to the ground or accidentally smash into the other person. 

But Jade was kissing her back. _Jade was kissing her back._

Aracely yanked herself away from Jade. She was breathing _so_ hard over a little kiss. “Sorry!”

Jade’s expression could only be described as ‘smug.’ “I’m not. Can we do that again?”

Aracely laughed a little, but she slipped her hand back into Jade’s. “Okay,” she said.

They did much more than just kiss that night.

Jade had asked once if Aracely would rather cook something she was more familiar with, but Aracely had said, flatly, “No,” so when Aracely brought up cooking tamales together, Jade had sent her a series of heart and heart-eyes emojis and asked her to send the list of ingredients.

Aracely sent it and a brief outline of what the steps required, and Jade said she would get started on the meat right away. 

The tamales were so juicy and fragrant, the meat falling apart in her mouth and the tamale fluffy and creamy from the lard. “I don’t think they’ve ever tasted this good,” Aracely said. “What’d you do to this meat?” 

“I vacuum sealed the pork and cooked it sous vide,” Jade said. “It’s when you circulate the water around the ingredient at a constant temperature, so it cooks evenly around, and you can cook it at lower temperatures for longer and it’ll still be safe.” 

“Huh,” Aracely said.

Jade frowned. “But, it’s not enhancing it, it’s just a style of cooking that produces a different kind of meat.” Her frown flipped into a smile. “But for me, what makes it taste good is being with someone I like.” 

Aracely smiled back at her. They were the best tamales Aracely had ever tasted.

Before she knew it, three months passed.

Of course, her family noticed, and her brothers were the first to mention it during one of the now-rare nights she was home for dinner. 

“So how’s your girlfriend?” Mateo said. 

Aracely wanted to pummel him. He was hanging out too much with Dante. “She’s not my girlfriend.” 

“I can’t believe you’ve forgotten all about us,” Dante moaned. “I don’t have anyone to make fun of now.” 

“You should be focusing on school,” Aracely said. “Stop slacking off!” 

“Mijos, please,” her mother said, “we are eating.” 

“What kind of grades are you getting?” Aracely asked. “And did you find an internship yet?” 

“Dad, tell Aracely to stop bugging me!”

“Are you seeing the girl from the food truck, mija?” 

“Dad! No!”

“You’re always out so late now,” her mother moaned. “I hope you’re not getting into trouble.” 

“Not you too, mama . . .”

Mateo piped up. “Can we be rich now, sis?” 

“I’m not dating her for money!”

Her parents both stared at her.

“What?” The looks made her nervous. 

“Nada nada,” her father said. “I’m happy for you.” 

“But we still need grandkids,” her mother said.

Aracely slapped her own forehead. “Please, mama, not right now.” 

“We’re gonna eat fancy bánh mì everyday!” Dante shouted. 

Aracely let out a frustrated breath. “Since you’re all done eating, I’m going to wash the dishes.” She started gathering up everyone’s plates, but they ignored as they started discussing just how ‘fancy’ Jade was.

That was the one thing Aracely hadn’t asked Jade yet. She couldn’t think of a good way to ask, ‘Just how rich are you?’ Rich people didn’t like it being pointed out to them that they were rich. And the more they saw each other, the more Aracely had a sinking feeling in her stomach that Jade was filthy, filthy rich.

It had started with the hundred dollar bills. Jade had offered to come over to Aracely’s place, but Aracely knew that they would never get peace if her family met Jade, so she insisted on driving across the city to meet Jade. Jade always found a way to sneak in a couple hundred dollars into Aracely’s purse, and when Aracely questioned her, Jade said, ‘It’s for the gas!’ Even when Aracely tried to sneak it back into Jade’s condo, Aracely would inevitably find money in her car somehow. 

Jade didn’t appear to have a day job. When Aracely asked her how her day went, Jade would talk about the newest coffee shop or cafe she’d checked out, or how it had been ‘uneventful, until you came over!’ Aracely had also done some quick math on the different appliances in her kitchen, and they totaled well into the tens of thousands of dollars. The Modernist books that had been on her shelves were around $1,300 for both sets! And the most damning part of all was when she’d looked up the value of Jade’s property. It had been appraised at well over a million dollars . . . 

Then there were the comments. Perfectly innocent comments, with nothing malicious behind them. Things like, “oh, is that a lot?” or, “oh, that doesn’t sound bad at all.” And Jade would sometimes wear streetwear that Aracely could _tell_ cost hundreds of dollars and were ‘limited edition.’ The kind of stuff Dante would totally lose his shit over. And when Aracely was talking about all the bureaucratic minutiae she had to maintain like the permitting, the registration, and the loan payments, Jade’s only contribution was to say, “that sounds really hard,” which made Aracely think that Jade had someone else doing it for her. There were the comments, too, about her training as a chef at expensive-sounding schools overseas. 

But she couldn’t bear to ask. She knew, but she didn’t _know_ know. And she was afraid to find out what would happen, how she would feel, when Jade confirmed it for her. 

Then one morning, while Aracely was handing out their regulars’ burrito and taco orders, she received several texts from Jade.

Jade  
Do you want to go to Tokyo with me for my birthday?  
It’s next month  
I got us tickets  
First class 😉  


Aracely dropped a burrito on the truck’s floor. 

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry, Fernando,” Aracely said. “I’ll make you a new one.”

Fernando was laughing. “Good text from your boyfriend, chica?” 

Aracely couldn’t even laugh or respond.

“I remember what it was like to be in love with your mother,” her dad said, filled with nostalgia that Aracely did not feel. 

“Yeah,” Aracely said. Her body felt disconnected from her mind, like it was acting on auto-pilot. Go to Tokyo . . . ? And she already got her ticket? And just casually, like she didn’t have a responsibility to the food truck? What was Jade thinking?

  
Aracely  
Let’s talk about it tonight  
  
Jade  
Okay 😊  


On the drive over, Aracely rehearsed what she was going to say. ‘How can you just _ask_ me that? I can’t just up and leave and go to Japan! I have to help out my family.’ Maybe something like that. Maybe something about not accepting charity. Did Jade just feel sorry for her? Did she think of Aracely as some poor commoner she had to take care of? The pressure in Aracely’s chest grew to bursting. She squeezed the steering wheel so hard her hands hurt. 

She parked the car underneath the overhand and went back around the front to knock. 

Jade opened the door, all smiles. “Aracely! So glad to see you!” She threw her arms around Aracely’s neck and kissed her. 

“Hey,” Aracely said, turning red. All the anger she’d been holding immediately deflated. She returned Jade’s hug. 

“How was the truck?” Jade asked. She let go and walked toward the kitchen, and Aracely followed her. “I made braised pork belly and egg, mustard green pickles, and—” 

“We need to talk,” Aracely blurted out. 

Jade turned and looked at her, her eyebrows knit together. “Okay,” she said, very slowly. “Do you want to eat first?”

No, Aracely thought. But she caved anyway.

Jade handed her a small bowl of rice and a pair of chopsticks. The tender pork belly was a deep brown color, the eggs a tan color, both braised in a fatty liquid. 

“This is called thịt kho trứng,” Jade said. “Basically just pork in some caramelized sauce stuck in the oven.”

The meat was melt-in-the-mouth tender, savory and slightly sweet. Combined with the rice, it was just the right amount of saltiness. The crunchy mustard green pickles cut the fat with a hint of fizz and a strong onion taste.

She hadn’t realized how hungry she was, but then—Jade’s food always made her feel hungrier than she’d ever felt. Jade’s enthusiasm for food didn’t help, either. She cooked like her life depended on it; she never seemed to tire. Aracely had admired that about her, but, then, did Jade’s life actually depend on cooking? Was this all an eccentric hobby to her?

“What did you want to talk about?” Jade asked, already on her third bowl. Aracely had no idea where she packed all that food. “Oh, is it about the trip to Tokyo? I thought it’d be nice. I booked it for two weeks, but we can stay longer—”

“ _Two weeks?_ You think I can be gone for two weeks?”

“Oh, it’s not a big deal, right?” Jade asked, waving her hand. Like spending thousands of dollars on someone else was no big fucking deal, like leaving her family for two weeks was just fine, just a normal thing she could do. “And besides, you haven’t been, right?”

Aracely slammed the bowl on the table. “What makes you think that?”

Jade jumped, her eyes widening. “Well, I don’t know. I figured—”

“You figured what? That I’m too poor to travel?” 

Jade narrowed her eyes. “I have never once said that,” she said. “You just don’t talk about traveling much.”

“Right,” Aracely said. “I take care of my family.” 

“Right,” Jade repeated. “So I thought it would be nice for you to get a break and eat new food.” 

“A break?” Aracely asked.

Jade sighed. “Don’t you get tired helping your family out all the time? Don’t you ever want to do something else, and have fun just for yourself? You never seem happy talking about them, and you never—” 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Aracely asked. The world seemed all out of focus, everything but Jade and her perfect, perfect face, with no worries in the world. “What is this ‘have fun for yourself’ shit? You think I can _afford_ to take time for myself? You think I don’t want to have _fun_? You think I _want_ to work my ass off everyday for the rest of my life?”

“Then why are you?” Jade snapped. “Why are you doing something you hate?”

Aracely laughed. It was funny, in a horrible way, what Jade was asking her. “I _have to_! I’m not like you, I can’t just hire someone to do my paperwork for me! I don’t have a rich daddy buying me a house and all my fancy shit! Fancy shit that you don’t share with _anyone_! I actually have to worry about my family, instead of them taking care of me. I’m not a spoiled little fresa!” 

“Fuck you!” Jade shouted. “You have no idea what—” 

“What? What? ‘You have no idea what’? What you’ve been through?” Aracely sneered. “ _I_ have no idea what _you’ve_ been through? Miss Trained-in-France at some rich white guy’s restaurant? Your car is a fucking luxury car! Your house is worth one-point-six million! You have a fucking illegal combi-oven in your home!”

Jade’s mouth twisted into a crooked line. For once, her face was ugly. “You know what, I was being _nice_ to you. I wanted to show you what it would be like if you didn’t have to worry about anything.”

“I don’t need your fucking charity!” Jade’s neighbors could probably hear her, but Aracely didn’t care.

“It’s not—” Jade threw her hands up. “You know what? Get out of my fucking house. No. Stop. Stop talking. Get out of my house.” 

Aracely slammed the door shut on her way out.

~*~

Aracely sat outside in the driveway to their room for about half an hour. She leaned her head on the steering wheel, her heart pounding in her ears. It had taken all her willpower not to break the speed limit to get home faster. 

The lights were still on in the living room, and Aracely could see the sliver of the TV playing through the curtains. Probably either her dad watching sports reruns or her brothers playing videogames, or even worse, her brothers trying to teach their dad videogames. 

When she walked through the front door, Mateo shouted out, “Aracely’s home from her date!” 

“Don’t wanna talk about it,” Aracely shouted back. 

She showered and locked herself in her bedroom. It was late, but sleep would not come to her. Both her brothers came by and heckled her from the door, but Aracely heard her mother hiss at them to stop and they went away. 

“Mija,” her mother said, through the door, very quietly. “I cut you some mango. It’s in the fridge for you.” 

Aracely waited half an hour for the house to quiet down before she ventured back into the kitchen. She stood by the fridge with the plate in one hand and a fork in the other. Her mother had cut them into slices, the way Aracely liked them, unlike her brothers, who wanted them diced. The mango was cold and sweet, buttery in texture on her mouth. 

She finished off the plate, her mouth suddenly filled with salt, and rubbed her eyes with the back of the hand holding the fork. 

Just as she started to wash the plate, she heard her mother’s soft footsteps behind her.

“Let your mama worry about the dishes. Go to bed, mi querida.” 

Aracely shut the faucet off. She waited for the door to her parents’ room to close before she shuffled back to bed. 

She dreamed of bittermelon soup.

~*~

Aracely didn’t know what her mother said, but no one mentioned Jade during breakfast the next day, and her father was quiet the whole trip to the first construction site. She wanted to thank her mother, but she knew she would want nothing, so Aracely vowed to work harder than ever. 

Three days later, Aracely received a wall of texts from Jade, all sent at two in the morning.

Jade  
I’m sorry for what I said.  
I know you’re busy taking care of the food trucks and supporting your family. I know I don’t understand everything you’re going through, and that anything I’ve gone through doesn’t compare to what you’ve gone through.  
I really liked all the time we spent together. I love how much you enjoy food, and I love that you aren’t a snob about it. I love that we can make food together and that you don’t expect me to make anything perfect or ‘new.’ I can just be myself with you.  
I really, really want to be with you.  
Just let me know if you feel the same.  


Aracely rolled her eyes and sighed. She didn’t have time for this shit. 

She ignored the messages and focused on Hot Tongue. She was not going to even think about Jade. 

That was what she told herself.

But when she brought up the idea of running Hot Tongue an extra two times a week, Mateo and Dante both looked at her like she’d just proposed they run off to the circus together. 

“I have school,” Mateo said. 

“Yeah,” Dante said, “I’m really behind on my homework. I’ve got an essay due next week.” 

“Oh, so _now_ you have school. You better get good grades, then.” 

She wasn’t going to ask her dad, and definitely not her mom, who couldn’t stand for that long in a hot, humid food truck. She didn’t think they had enough cash reserves to start paying for another employee, either. There was no way she could both take the orders and prepare the food herself . . . 

She tried to settle back into the “before-Jade” routine. Get up each morning at five-thirty a.m. to go to the tortilleria to refresh the inventory; go to the commissary to prep the meat and other ingredients; get to their first site by seven a.m.; make sure to tweet about Hot Tongue’s next appearance; move onto the next at eight, and so on until six p.m.; go back to the commissary and unload leftovers into the storage space; drive back home in the regular car; have dinner with her family; shower; go to sleep; rinse, rinse, rinse and repeat until the weekend, when she would hop out of their construction site truck into the branded Hot Tongue truck, prep everything, pick up Dante, Mateo, or both; serve food till midnight; clean up at the commissary; make another Tweet thanking everyone for showing up; go home . . . 

It was not fun, and every time Aracely felt the malaise wash over her, she thought of Jade. 

It was the worst when she was home on a weekday. She sat at the dinner table, but everything tasted bland. Dante and Mateo tried to joke with her, but she could barely muster a smile. Mateo was especially insistent on showing her “lesbian cottagecore TikTok,” while Dante was much more invested in “woke TikTok,” both of which Aracely didn’t completely understand. When she finally blew up and told them, “Stop showing me your damn Vines!” they’d both given her the dirtiest look as though she’d insulted their own mother.

“Rude. It’s not Vine,” Mateo muttered.

“Getting dumped made you such a pendeja,” Dante groaned. 

Aracely wanted to snap back at him, but she stayed silent, gnashing her teeth together. She hadn’t been dumped. She’d been the one doing the dumping. 

In bed, she pulled out her phone and looked at the last text messages Jade had sent her. It had been over three weeks ago. If Aracely thought hard enough about Jade, she could still feel Jade’s hand in hers, the smell of her freshly washed hair, the look in her eyes when she started talking about using different enzymes and chemicals to cook, the way she asked Aracely to cook with her—not to make something for money, but just to make something _together_. 

She typed into the message box, “Dante was being stupid today,” and then deleted it.

She started to type, “I miss you,” stopped, and then deleted it. 

Aracely hadn’t realized she’d had so many free hours before she’d seen Jade, and now the rest of her life seemed to stretch out before her. Everyday was going to be like this. Working at the truck. Fighting with her brothers until they both were able to sustain themselves. Hiring someone to help out with the truck so her parents could retire. She guessed she would work with the food truck for the rest of her life, just like her dad.

Jade  
I really, really want to be with you.  
Just let me know if you feel the same.  


Aracely took a deep breath.

  
Aracely  
Hot tongue is going to be at first Fridays next week  
  
We can talk there  
  
If you want  
  


The response came immediately.

Jade  
Okay  
I’ll meet you at the end of the night  


~*~

Jade had said that she’d show up at the end of the night, but that didn’t stop Aracely from seeing Jade in every customer and random passerby. She accidentally called someone ‘Jade,’ and she’d felt so mortified she asked Dante to switch with her so she could work on the hot plate while he took orders.

“Don’t forget to charge extra for avocado,” Aracely said.

“Okay, Jade,” Dante said. Aracely would have kicked him out of the truck if she didn’t need him.

Her dad acknowledged her as she stepped over, but otherwise said nothing. Both he and her mother had been giving her a wide berth; her mother had tried to talk to her about Jade, but every time she did, Aracely would stand up and leave the room. She couldn’t handle talking about it, not with her parents. 

Dante was casual with the customers in an obnoxious way, but Aracely tried to ignore him and focus on the food. 

It was not fun. Aracely wanted to go home and give up on a “trendy” food truck and just stick to their usual routes. Maybe she’d go get a boring office job and eat boring salad lunches with her coworkers and answer phones or look at spreadsheets . . . 

The line slowed to a trickle. Glad that the night was almost over, Aracely let out a deep breath.

“Yo! JADE! It’s been so long!” 

Aracely’s head snapped up. Jade was standing in front of the line. Her hair was falling around her shoulders; her shirt a bit loose but in a flattering way; her skin smooth. She looked good. Of course she did. How else could she look, with her cute eyes, cute nose, cute mouth? Aracely felt light-headed seeing her again. 

“Hey, Dante,” Jade said. “I’m here to talk to Aracely.”

Dante leaned forward, out of the window, to say something to Jade that Aracely couldn’t hear. Jade frowned and laughed, not in a pleasant way, but Aracely still felt her heart skip. She couldn’t believe she had it so bad.

“Can I get two burritos?” Jade asked.

“You got it!” Dante punched in the order, and Aracely and her dad got to work. “Can you hit us with a tip?”

“I’m going to make an extra one for myself,” Aracely said. 

“Okay, mija,” her dad said. He had that ‘concerned dad’ look on her face. 

“I’m fine, dad.” 

“Okay, mija,” he said again, but he didn’t sound convinced.

As he turned the tablet around, Dante made a sound like an alarm system. “WHOAAA Jade, I think you put an extra zero in here!” 

“It’s okay,” Jade said. “Think of it as me making up for not making you another bánh mì.”

Now Aracely was annoyed. If Jade thought she was going to win her back with an extra zero on a tip screen, she couldn’t be further from the truth.

Her dad placed the three burritos in a bag and handed it to Aracely. 

“Okay, sis, see you back at home,” Dante said.

“What?” Aracely furrowed her brow. “You guys aren’t waiting for me?”

“Uh, hell no,” Dante said. “I gotta get home and sleep. And do my homework.”

“Since when do you do homework on a Friday?!” 

“I can give you a ride home,” Jade said, and then quickly added, “or I can call you a rideshare.” 

“Go, mija,” her dad said. “Come on, go.” 

Dante was maneuvering around her and cleaning up the surfaces of the truck. “Sis, you gonna make dad wait in the cold? He’s old.” 

It didn’t seem like they were actually going to just leave her there. But Aracely didn’t want to be trapped there, in case she gave up on talking to Jade. And she didn’t know if she could accept a rideshare from Jade. 

Dante held his phone in front of him, the screen facing them, with Aracely in the background. He was recording. “Emotionally stupid lesbian sister check!” he shouted.

Aracely shoved him. “You better not post that on TikTok,” she said. “Okay, fine, I’ll see you tonight. Don’t fall asleep at the wheel.” 

“Aye, aye,” Dante said. “No promises on the TikTok, though.” 

Aracely stepped out of the truck, burrito bag in one hand. 

Jade smiled at her, hesitant. “Um, maybe we could talk in my car? And I could park my car on the beach?”

“Fine,” Aracely said. “Where’s your car?”

Jade’s car was in the public parking spaces behind the shops. It was still the same expensive car. Aracely wondered why she was even bothering to talk to Jade. Nothing about her was going to change. Jade wasn’t going to give up her car and suddenly truly understand her. 

“Hold on, let me back out . . .” 

Aracely turned to look out the rear window. “Shit. Everyone’s leaving at the same time. Let’s just stay here.” 

“Okay.” Jade sounded defeated. She turned the car off. 

They sat in silence, both of them looking out into the very unattractive hedge of bushes in front of them. 

Aracely’s mouth felt like it was glued together, but she knew she had to speak. 

“I read the _New York Times_ review of your food truck when it first came out,” Aracely said. “The bad one. I was eating tsukemen on Sawtelle.”

“Oh.” Jade frowned, both in surprise and confusion. “That one stung.” 

“That gringo can’t tell the difference between one Asian cuisine and another.” Aracely snorted. “But I thought about it sometimes, like if someone reviewed Hot Tongue that badly, we’d be decimated.” She turned her head to look at Jade. “But you never have to worry about that, and you didn’t, people still lined up, and even if they didn’t, nothing bad would happen.”

Jade looked down. She started to speak, but Aracely interrupted her.

“There’s nothing to say to that,” Aracely said. “That’s just the difference between us.” 

“I’m still sorry,” Jade said. “And I’m sorry I asked you to go with me to Tokyo.”

“Did you end up going?”

“No,” Jade said. “I really wanted to go with you.” 

“It was a nice thought,” Aracely said. “I was being defensive.”

“Me too.” 

They lapsed into silence again. 

The bag of burritos was in her lap, warming up her legs. “Want to eat?” Aracely held one out to Jade and held another in her other hand. 

Jade took it from her and unwrapped it. She took a small bite. “What about you? You’re not going to eat?”

Aracely peeled away the aluminum foil and took a bite. It was—okay. She had spent the whole day in the truck; she’d become desensitized to the smell and taste. 

“When I first met you, you went to town on that burrito.”

“I’m a little nervous,” Jade said.

Aracely wondered what it was like, to be so secure financially but to still be nervous. As if Jade didn’t already have the whole world in her palm—not just with the money, but with her cooking, too. Anyone would be lucky to be with Jade, and Aracely was sure there was a line of rich people waiting out there to date her. 

But she’d chosen to spend all her time with Aracely. And she’d never intentionally showered Aracely with gifts of money. She’d only given her food. Even the Tokyo trip had been about food. 

“Did you date me because I can’t compete with you when it comes to money?” Aracely asked.

Jade’s eyes widened. “No,” she said. “No, if you mean I was going to lord it over you, no. But I just felt like you cared about things differently. Like, all the guys I’ve dated cared about food, but like a status symbol. ‘Oh, I went to the fanciest three Michelin star restaurant and now I know something about food and cooking.’ But they didn’t actually have an interest in the process of cooking.”

“Not one of them?” 

“Well, the ones that did were always trying to explain it to me.”

“I can see that,” Aracely said, smiling a little. 

Jade took a bigger bite of her burrito. 

Aracely took a deep breath, and then, all in a rush, she said. “I don’t want you to think I’m dating you for money, because I’m not.” 

“I’ve never thought that!”

“But I can’t promise you that I won’t ever take you up on a trip, either,” Aracely said. The more she was saying, the faster she spoke. “Just not right now, now’s not a good time.”

“Wait—what are you saying—” 

“I do expect food, a lot of food,” Aracely said. “I want to cook every time we see each other like we were doing before and I don’t need to eat at a fancy restaurant but I can’t promise I won’t want that either.”

“Are we—do you mean that—” 

“And I might have to ask you to work on the food truck once in a while,” Aracely said. Her words were running together. “And Dante’s birthday is coming up in a few months and I think it would be nice to have an exclusive Jade Nguyen bánh mì party, but I’ll pay, or as much of it as I can, and that’s final. I’ll pay you.” She let out a big sigh. “Deal?” 

Jade stared at her. After a second, a smile spread across her face. “Deal,” she said, and then she ate half her burrito in one bite.

Aracely smiled back at her. She took a bite of her own burrito. Savory-sweet, tender beef tongue, full of spices, chiles, fresh tomatoes and salsa, creaminess from avocado and sour cream, the sweet starch of rice. 

It tasted delicious.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my lovely beta readers, and thank you to this tutorial, [How to Make iOS Text Messages on AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6434845/chapters/14729722), for guidance!


End file.
